The rivet was a tough one.. the frame is boxed and there is almost no room to get a bolt in there either. I finally got one in, but the hole was slightly too small for a 1/2'', so had to redrill.. just getting the dang thing in the hole took an hour.

The rivet wasn't fun either.. Ford said a 3/8'' drill bit and went through, it left plenty of meat on the center pin, if I had just used a 7/16th it would have went a lot quicker.
But drilled about 3/4 of the way through both rivets, used a punch to pop off the top one, the bottom one would not come off no matter what I tried, I had to drill it out with a 1/2 bit.

this was not a fun job at all.. these Ford rivets are just flat out huge and tough.

Cool thing is, I could actually see my frame flexing back into place, especially when I bolted up the rear cross member. Here's hoping it stiffened things up quite a bit...

 

Well good job on the repairs, hopefully you will start getting some luck your way brother slim, i bought some thread lock cause my new bolts in my pass side Radius arm bracket came loose and i lost one already, it is a PITA to get to them but when i had the trans out it was easy, i just didn't have threadlock so i will have to try getting under there and tightening them. I also have to check other bolts to make sure their tight.

Hopefully your luck starts turning for the better my friend.

 

I dunno if I mentioned it but my 'broken' starter just ended up being a loose positive battery terminal.. this one kills me, it should have been the first place I looked!

also, have a new, very faint popping when I turn the wheel. I'm worried my frame is cracked, I drove 100+ miles with that rivet loose, and you could see my frame twisting and turning without that reinforcement point.
The Bronco just isn't going to handle 35s without some more strength in my front end.. if I could just get a nice 1/4'' plate steel bumper made it would be more than plenty! But removing the swaybar hurt my frontend rigidity, the non-swaybar trucks have a crossmember in the front, mine has nothing.. I'm just playing with fire here.

Luckily, your 78 doesn't have these issues, they really were just tougher back then.


and honestly, it's not so much bad luck as a 'bad' owner.. I drive my Bronco really, really hard. I check up on my Aunt every day and there is this section of train track by her house that, well, if you hit it at 40 even with 10'' of travel I can get my tires off the ground.. I hit it on the way there and on the way out, every single time. On non-offroading days this thing takes more abuse than most brand new cars could handle.. I have never, ever avoided a pothole, I accelerate for train tracks (which can be really nasty here) and I realize that, it's why I built it the way I did.

Man, but get me out to the lake or on some back-road, mud, rocks, etc? There's a reason it requires repairs every time I leave the house, if it didn't, I'd be doing something wrong :P

Oh, frame feels a TON stiffer now and my top doesn't creak and flex anymore, so that rear crossmember bolt made a huge difference

 

Ah good to hear, ya TGM is a pretty tough sucker, i have a set of train tracks i jumped with my ranger but i didn't try too hard with my bronco, i don't have a back up vehicle if it breaks and i have so much crapola in the back that if i had to slam on the brakes while everything was airborne i would probably get hit with a tool box or 2 and some other random s**t... I do need new shocks though, i noticed when i go over speed bumps (i take it slow) there is a nice thump as the rear end drops, it happens once in a while so i will need to look at the leaf mounts and the u-bolts and such to make sure it isn't flopping around. Eventually my neighbors kid will be doing an 18" lift on their old ford pickup and i want to try buying the 4" springs off him when they come off. Then the suspension would be pretty much done save for shocks and linkages and stuff.

 

I recently removed my front and rear sway bar on a 96 fsb for a little more flex not to mention the extra body roll stops anyone else from wanting to drive it... what is this problem you have with frame flex and why? I havent noticed any major problems like that.... btw drilling the factory rivets is for amatuers sir step up to a good grinder or better yet a decent little oxy acetelyene torch... grinder still takes about 2-5 min per but no killing expensive drill bits..

 

nah, couldn't use a grinder, the angles wouldn't let me get to it without cutting the frame.. and Ford said absolutely never use a torch on these rivets as it WILL weaken the frame, I'm not playin' around with that.

Just like I said, Ford either had a swaybar up front OR a crossmember, I think it's pretty clear that the bumper doesn't offer enough frame support for the front of the truck. You might be able to see the frame flex if you get under there when someone turns the wheel, even brand new trucks flex somewhat, but still, this is one spot I want rigid..

Guess what though? Popping came back, went to retighten the nut and .. the nut's threads stripped. Didn't act much like a Grade 8! I put my impact on it which usually maxes out at about 300 ft' lbs on tighten.

Well, was about to say something dumb, but went and checked guidelines and a 1/2'' should be tightened to about 100 ft lbs. Ford recommends 320 ft lbs for a 9/16'' (not much bigger) then weld the nut.. I'm going to have to find stronger than grade 8 for this.. I had to cut the nut and bolt off, then when I removed it saw that the bolt had actually BENT! Never in my life have I seen a true grade 8 bend before.

The only other option for now is to drill a second hole and put another 1/2'' bolt in, or even a bigger hole for a 5/8'', but there isn't much room to work with connecting the crossmember in this section, I just don't think it's possible.

Bottom line is, I need a crossmember. This frame is not gonna move these 35'' tires with my saginaw pump. I'm SURE I have other loose rivets or possibly even a crack behind the coil bucket.



I also, like I have said, drive my truck tough. With the rivet loose I was doing things in it that I wouldn't do in a brand new Raptor.. but for God's sake, I can't believe I was able to bend a 1/2'' grade 8 bolt? That's A LOT of physical stress in this one area, no wonder our frames crack.

 

I know ya'll would be a lot more interested if I posted pictures, but still, gonna keep this as sort of a personal log anyways. My hands are too greasy to type it into my phone, but my keyboard is a whole other story.

Apparently I'm burning oil quicker than I thought, after about 1k miles I was showing about a quart at the end of the dipstick, so I was a few quarts low. I just went from Rotella 10-30 to 15-40 to help reduce some of the blowby. I don't think it's being burned as much as being blown out through my vent. I don't understand this one? Except maybe my motor is still clogged quite a bit and the oil isn't draining back quickly enough through the rear of the passenger side head? There is no reason for why I should be getting excessive blowby with a functioning Motorcraft PCV, without the oil getting passed my rings and showing in my exhaust! With no cat, I get ZERO visible smoke out of my exhaust at ANY RPM! Either slow draining of the oil, OR poor vacuum towards the rear of the motor at some RPMs? Possibly due to thermactor stuff I haven't taken off yet? I don't know!

I get a very very small 'drip drip', I *think* is from my oil pan, but honestly the Bronco sat for two days and I had TWO drops of oil on the ground. My custom air filter is filled with oil, as is my PCV hose and the rear of my intake, so it's definitely being sucked in through the PCV system and not getting passed the rings! Not sure if the 15w40 is gonna help or hurt in this situation!

That frame bolt was loose again, to about 40 ft lbs? this time I just tightened it to about 100 ft lbs instead of trying to push it to 200+ and I'm going to keep doing that until I can find something more strong. I need to order 9/16'' fine thread, stronger than grade 8 off the internet. I *know* this section of the frame is going to 'settle' and move around, but I'm not sure the bolt will stay tightened and I really don't feel safe with only 100 ft lbs of torque.

In other news, my .. uh, thing that goes into the intake and has the ECT and throttle body coolant coming off of it? It's leaking pretty bad. I'm not sure if it's the part, or the threads on my intake? I wish I could just find a good, used lower and upper off of eBay, or I wish I could push myself into buying an Edelbrock or similar, something with more valve cover clearance.. I have a ton of room under the hood, so taller would be better, or even hoping I could find more of a TBI design like used on Dodge, just something to unclutter my engine compartment and fix these dang leaks!

Weird thing is, it leaks more when cold than when hot! Sitting, I lost two quarts of anti-freeze, but when driving it is maybe a quart a month? Probably expansion at the thread when warm or something, i dunno.. either way, I leak less coolant when running, when the coolant is pressurized, if I let it sit it will just drip out until below my upper hose.

Edit:

One more note, my passenger side wheel bearing was loose again.. been fighting this one for a year! My spindle keyway is sort of worn, the old lock washer use to spin on it.. upgraded to some $60 locking washer nut thingie, the washer is thick and didn't spin, but my wheel bearing somehow still loosened! Yep, guarantee my rear? Oddly enough, on my passenger side my axle seems to be spinning even when unlocked. In the next few days I'm going to remove the spindle, brakes, etc and completely go from axle out to try and figure out what the heck is going on.

 

Dang you got a lot going on there buddy. You should be a new vehicle test driver for ford, get their new vehicle and drive it hard to see what breaks.

 

yeah man, just how I do things. Rented a Ford Flex for a Manhattan trip and broke the steering column in the first day, before I even made it there. It's just my thing, seeing things reach their breaking point and then fixing them.

This Bronco was $650, the guy I got it from thought it was done for! I've put 20,000 miles on it since then.

In other more relevant news, absolutely LOVING the way it's running with the 15w40. All lifter tapping is gone, motor sounds smooth! Oil is only 50 miles old, but dang am I loving it!

 

Good to hear. What did you do to break the steering column on the Flex? In TGM i am running 5w40 i think, mainly to try to ease up the rear main leak i have. I don't think it worked but whatever.

 

i dont think its a rear main on yours man.. thought it was on my 400, but with my 351w I learned just about every leak leaks back down to that stop. I slowed it to a very, VERY slow drip by sealing up my valve covers (the old ones were warped) and retightening my oil pan bolts.

Anyways, I dunno how I did it.. but by the end of the trip it felt EXACTLY like my Bronco column. Maybe I put too much weight on the wheel or something? I had a good time joking with my family on how I 'customized' my Flex to feel more like the Bronco when I got it with the loose column and play in the steering :P

Otherwise that fricken Flex was a dream, probably the best car I have ever driven in my life.

 

Nice, thats weird though that such a new car could have loose steering that easily. As for my "rear main" leak, i did notice when i had the tranny out that there was a bit of oil on the back of the passenger side head BUT that could have been from my step dads oily hand feeling for the bellhousing bolts. Though i'm sure they could use tightening or replacement. And i bet the oil pan could use a new gasket on top of bolt tightening. I was looking at doing that while the tranny was down but my step-dad was already pissed about how long he had to leave his car out of the garage i figured the quicker i get it done the better. That is also why i don't have many pictures.

 

I'm not sure if this will help you or not. I had a 72 f100 with an fe 390 that had a pretty bad issue with blow by. It was so bad that it would come through the dipstick tube. A mechanic friend recommended dumping a quart of seafoam in the oil and running it for about 25-30 miles on the highway. Once this is done, change the oil to Amsoil 15w-40. I did this exactly and got rid of some of the blow by. I also changed the pcv (I think you need one too if you get that much oil in the breather) The only way I was able to afford the Amsoil was because he had a shop and got it at his discounted rate. ($6 a quart) As I said before, it may not do a thing for yours since every one of them is different.

 

My PCV is new, I went through a couple, hating the way my motor acted until I settled on a Motorcraft which I check about every 200 miles. I know I can see visible blowby with the PCV unhooked, even at idle, this is sort of normal but it still seems excessive (I've seen worse).

I was thinking about this today and I think what happens is I spend so much time at low vacuum situations, flooring it then letting off, I'm getting oil spurts through my vent into my filter. I have looked and looked and cannot get it to squirt oil with my PCV unhooked, especially with it hooked back up. It has to be, I'm guessing, when I floor it, let up going into third, then floor it again (because of a sticking solenoid, i get hard shifts).

Anyways, I had been getting a lean code for a while, went ahead and changed out my O2 sensor and the Bronco ran differently almost immediately. Instead of idling at 750 on a warm start, it started up and ran at about 450-500RPMs, started bogging down, then cleaned up after a minute. I think my old O2 sensor was always reading lean, which might explain why the last fillup I only got 9.4mpg! If the old one and new one were fine, the Bronco shouldn't have changed at all when switching them out.

Odd but now my shifts are a bit sharper in the Bronco, since before the O2 sensor, about 3 days ago I noticed? I can also feel my TC lock and unlock at around 30mph when fully warmed up and it makes the ride feel off, of course it's not steady pedal pressure, but I use to not feel it as strongly.
This might be my MLPS? I have to double and triple check fluid levels, they're hard to get right in this tranny. I moved my temp sensor from my pan to the inspection hole and the tranny seems to read more stably now, but takes forever to reach max temp (seems to be 160, sorta low in my opinion) and once it hits 160, I get harsher shifts, 2-3 and 3-2 feel like it's going to rip the tranny mount out of my truck.. it only happens when warm!

I also might be feeling them more because I tightened up more chassis bolts that had loosened at my tranny crossmember, plus my rear crossmember which I mentioned before that had popped a rivet.


Still getting weird clunks at the frontend even with the bolt tightened down, so I'm fearing the worst on this one. When I can free up 3-4 hours I'm going to cut off my coil bucket and take a look at the frame more closely.

current mileage is 223,200 (new app for my phone) exact mileage is 9.239mpg average and since I started keeping track two months ago, I've put $935 into the Bronco including gas.

 

everyone talks about accidentally having a second o-ring left inside their tranny for their filter and it causing problems in their tranny, just pulled my pan to check it and .. well, the o-ring is stuck in the transmission and I can't remove it, but it looks like the original one. Using a non-E4OD filter as per B&W's instructions with their panl.

Don't know a ton about transmissions. My fluid didn't look perfect, but not terrible.. noticed a piece of gasket inside the pan that came off from inside the transmission, I dunno what these parts are called but it's thin and hard plastic between the parts you can immediately see when you take the pan off?
Finally got a good look at my solenoid pack and.. well, i dunno, other than, at least I saw mine up close?
filter was a tad dirty, bottom of the pan was dirty, not a great sign. I think stuff may be getting in through the vent when I ford through the deep stuff.

Some small bits of metal on the magnet, fine stuff.. but far less than I find in my rear-end when I change fluid as the clutch packs wear, so I can't imagine it's very bad news.